


Bucky, Answer Me

by aceofhearts88



Series: Post Civil War Oneshots [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt Bucky Barnes, Hurt/Comfort, I promise, Just see the other works in this series, M/M, so everyone is happy again soon, this is set before the future Cap reveal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-17
Updated: 2016-06-19
Packaged: 2018-07-15 16:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7229533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofhearts88/pseuds/aceofhearts88
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is the first time the Avengers, or more specifically Tony Stark calls for his help, and Bucky can't not go, but he vowed to never fight again. He swore to himself and the people close to him now that he would never hurt another human being ever again.</p><p>He came to help as a consultant, but it were kids, kids in the line of fire and he just couldn't stay behind. So he went out with them, to protect, to help evacuate. </p><p>Humans make mistakes, and better healing factor or not, in the end a Super-Soldier was just that, human.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> If there is any confusion of where this ties in. I am setting this about roughly two years before "Together? - Together."

Even a Super-Soldier could fall.

Exalerated healing didn't meant someone was safe from getting injured in the first place. Decades of experience didn't mean that someone couldn't make mistakes. Constant paranoia and hyper surroundings attention didn't mean someone couldn't oversee something.

Even a Super-Soldier was still human. And humans made mistakes.

\--

"You know I didn't make this call easily." T'Challa explained calmly as he steered the jet through the rising sun over the Atlantic, behind him Bucky groaned and kept his head between his knees, hands pulling at his hair, "Are you breathing again?"  
"Just keep talking." Bucky snapped and then took an overdramatic and loud breath just to appease the man in front of him, the man piloting the damn jet.

How fitting that his first trip into the States started with a panic attack. First step back into the dramatics of Avenger territorium and Bucky's body welcomed it with dramatics of its own. 

"Stark's debrief said that they have been chasing a split off group of AIM for weeks now. They are made responsible for several attacks on civilian powered people, you know, those who signed the Accords but wanted to continue living their lives in private and peace." Bucky hummed, listening to what he said but also focusing on the tone of T'Challa's voice alone to stop the frantic urge to scream in his head, "In two cases, schools were targeted as well, and unfortunately it was only then that the public and authorities and hence the Avengers even got notified to it."

"They are now looking into who could have leaked the information about those listed, but took even greater focus for now on finding this group and stopping any more attacks from happening." T'Challa continued and Bucky slowly straightened up again, sacking back into the seat and dragging a hand down his face. Part of him wanted to beg T'Challa to turn the jet around and bring him back to his textbooks and study schedules.

"So that was when they found the Hydra connections?" He nevertheless asked out loud, he was here on his own choice. Completely voluntarily. Despite turning up and asking for his help, T'Challa had still spent two hours trying to talk him out of his decisions after the three Bucky had needed to make one.  
"Yes. Romanov and Stark came upon the signs and evidence that suggests these fanatics have united themselves with some of those splinter cells of Hydra that are still able to slip under the radar...Bucky?" And T'Challa turned around again and Bucky looked at him.

"I'm fine, I swear. Just don't leave me alone with either of them, and keep talking." He asked and T'Challa turned back up front but stuck a hand behind himself so that Bucky could reach for it and intertwine their fingers for a little while.  
"Trust me, I will not let you out of my sight once we arrived. Romanov told me that some of those Hydra agents they have identified now belonged to the former Strike Team who worked for Alexander Pierce in Shield." T'Challa said and then squeezed his hand when Bucky groaned.

God fucking hell, he already hated this.

"It was still Stark who asked if you might be able to help out in sniffing out some more of those bastards, his words, not mine. Purely analytical work, you wouldn't have to make a step out of the facility if you don't want. No one, I repeat no one, is awaiting you to step up and fight, Bucky. I made it crystal clear to them that you don't do that anymore, and Stark assured me he will respect that decision." Bucky chuckled upon the hard edge in T'Challa's voice and leaned forward to kiss the hand still holding onto his.  
"I like it when you're looking out for me, but some battles I also fight myself, don't forget that, Chall. I can take them, Stark's going to drive me insane within the first five minutes, but I know to expect that." He promised and T'Challa hummed.

"Good, then buckle up, we're there soon."

\--

The welcoming moment could have been awkward if Wanda hadn't jumped up from the couch in the living room and then continued to race across the room until she could throw her arms around Bucky's neck and hug him tightly enough that T'Challa needed to place a hand on his back to keep them on their feet.

The other moved at a much slower pace. Romanov turned away where she had been staring out of the window, Lang helped a woman up from the couch whom Bucky knew only from what T'Challa had told him about Hope van Dyne. Vision remained standing at the kitchen counter, his eyes set on them, unreadable, and Bucky had no intentions to ever trust him.

Rhodes came over slowly, while Stark simply glanced over where he was deep in conversation with someone on the phone in a nearby conference room. 

"I missed you so much. It's so good to see you again." Wanda smiled all bright and happy and Bucky felt himself smile as well, even though his insides were screaming with discomfort. Instincts in him were rearing their ugly heads and he internally started to list down flower names to not make a run for it.  
"It's good to see you, too, Wanda." He told her and then braced himself when Rhodes came to stand next to the young woman, "Colonel."

"Sergeant." Rhodes echoed the sentiment and Bucky fought down the urge to salute, it wasn't like either of them was still in the military, but old habits died really hard, "It's good to have someone with experience on board." Rhodes broke the awkward silence quickly, "We're poking around in the dark most of the time. All hornet nests we poke are already empty."  
"That's because we don't poke them, we blast them open and leave them enough time to scatter off." Romanov announced herself and smiled at T'Challa and him.

None of them really smiled back.

Bucky wasn't downright scared of her, he knew that he could hold his own against her if push came to shove, but he also knew very well that one wrong movement and T'Challa would be between them anyway. He was overprotective like that. And what one sister and two baby cousins hadn't been able to punch out of him, Bucky wouldn't even try.

"Why don't we sit down?" Rhodes proposed, reading the tension correctly, and he swept a hand towards the couches. Bucky let himself be dragged off by Wanda and greeted Lang and van Dyne before he sat down, Wanda on one side, T'Challa on the other, wall of concrete at his back. Romanov and Rhodes sat down the other couch, leaving the armchair free, while Vision remained standing.

"No, no, I'm saying no." Stark announced himself as he stepped out of the glass wall surrounded conference room again, still on the phone, one hand raking through his hair, "Oh, what that means? If I am saying no, then it means no! No, non, nein, in how many languages do you want it? You stay right there at your dorm like a good college kid and complain about homework assignments. Write your damn essay, eat pizza, watch Netflix, just stay!...Fine....Yes...Bye, Pete." He sighed in the end and put his phone away, taking a look into the round before sitting down on the armchair and dragging a hand through his hair.

"Does this mean my ulcer can have a break and you got Pete to actually stay behind?" Rhodes asked and Bucky recalled the strange guy in the onesie with the webs spit from his hands, the kid who hadn't been able to shut the hell up.  
"I threatened to revoke all access to the labs if I see him in a fight one more time without me calling him in. He's gonna pout for ages now, but he will stay on his damn ass." Stark explained and then his eyes snapped to Bucky who stared right back.

He wasn't scared. Stark made him nervous, not afraid. Not any longer.

"I believe none of us wants to spent much time with smalltalk, so why don't we just cut straight to the point."

\--

Shuri would call it overbearing behavior, would make a comment or six about his tendencies to crowd the people he cared about into a cage of overprotective claws. T'Challa called it looking out for others, looking out for Bucky who had specifically asked him to not leave him alone with the Avengers.

It wasn't that he was expecting someone to make a move against Bucky, he had worked together with them often enough by now that he no longer mistrusted their every breath and intention. But that in no way meant that he trusted the team, because he didn't. Aside from Wanda, he knew none of them very well, and even Wanda only had his trust because she was close to Shuri, and his sister was way pickier with finding friends than he had ever been.

Lang and van Dyne were quiet, they liked to remain in the background, kept their heads and necks out of the tension, trouble and awkward glances, so very smart of them. 

It was Stark, Rhodes, Romanov and especially Vision he couldn't get to trust, working with them was one thing, trusting them and turning his back on them for longer than necessary a whole other story. And despite everything what he might think one day, when Bucky got involved a whole new set of rules were at stakes, just like it would be if it was anyone else from his family.

Maybe he will one day trust these people with his back in a fight, but he won't trust them with Bucky's.

He remained at the side while Stark and Romanov read Bucky into their mission, showed him what they had found out already and what was still puzzling them. Bucky listened, asked questions and T'Challa watched him. Read over him like a book, catalogued the lines of tension on his face, neck, in his shoulders and his arms, in his hips and legs. Noticed the nervous tapping of metal fingers against a hip, how teeth bit on a bottom lip whenever he wasn't talking.

T'Challa heard how quiet Bucky was again, voice, thoughts, steps, movements, even the simplest of gestures. Like a frigthened cat, his head supplied him and made him scowl internally, but it also fit, because Bucky tried to hide without disappearing entirely. Tried to make himself small, appear non-threatening, he was clearly fighting tooth and nail to not just bolt out of the door and go back to his little apartment. Back to Bucharest. Back to safety.

He wanted to help, so desperately wanted to do something good. 

T'Challa just wondered under what prize.

\--

Stark, surprisingly enough, called for a break after a couple of hours and T'Challa jumped for the chance to get Bucky somewhere alone, just politely asked for a guest room and then nodded when Stark rattled off floor numbers, already busy with his phone again. Only Romanov watched after them as T'Challa gently led Bucky from the room with a careful but still steady firm hand on his shoulder.

T'Challa closed the door behind them not three minutes later, steared Bucky further into the small but rather cosy guest room and then under Bucky's more or less waiting eyes, set his phone onto the sideboard and clicked the right combinations.

It beeped once.

And Bucky threw his head back and screamed for about ten seconds.

"Feel better now?" T'Challa asked and pulled off the tie of which he wasn't even sure anymore why he had put in on in the first place.  
"Oh yeah." Bucky replied and dragged both hands down his face, "Just, urgh, this is so incredibly awkward. Stark is exhausting, and Romanov thinks she is being sneaking in watching me like a damn hawk, but she really really isn't."

"You have no idea how good it feels to see you ranting." T'Challa chuckled and then cupped Bucky's face and kissed him.  
"You think Stark will hack that blocker?" Bucky gasped against his lips when they broke apart again and T'Challa grinned.  
"He never did the last five times I was here for longer than just a day, no reason to believe he would now. Why, what's on your mind?" He wanted to know as Bucky set his hands on his hips.

"You." Bucky answered, turned them and pushed T'Challa on the bed, "Just without the clothes."

\--

Ultimately, they were both used to not actually getting what they wanted, and they were barely finished with taking a shower after two rounds of sex when the alarm rang out over the facility. 

They dressed rushed, T'Challa already into the suit and then raced up into the living room again where Stark was already assembling the suit around himself and Rhodes was speaking into two phones at once, suited up to his waist.  
"They're targeting a school in Brooklyn." Stark called out the second they saw them and Bucky closed his eyes for a moment, god fucking dammit.

"Can I help?" He spoke out before he had even opened his eyes again, because no, no god fucking dammit, kids, freaking kids, he couldn't stay behind when it was kids on the line. Stark stared at him and T'Challa whirled around, arguments already on his lips, but Bucky looked at him, tried to let his eyes get across what his words couldn't in front of the Avengers.

Kids. Kids in the place he had grown up in. He couldn't stay behind.

"Your choice, Barnes." Stark told him and Bucky nodded, and then followed Romanov down into the armory. Grabbed some of the weapons she offered him and a jacket, and waited until she was off speaking with someone over radio before whispering to T'Challa was still fuming at him.

"It's my choice. I can't stand behind when it's children, Chall. Please, understand. I'll go for protection only, help evacuate the kids, civilians, break open doors, help them climb out of windows, whatever it is needed." T'Challa closed his eyes upon his words, clearly worried, "It'll be okay."

The kiss that T'Challa pressed to his lips was hard and desperate and Bucky clasped his hand and squeezed before they went out to join the others.

He wouldn't fight. He would protect.

\--

Everything was under control until Bucky found himself cut off from the rest of the on ground fighters and had to back away into the ruins of a burned down storage barrack to avoid the onslaught of firing AIM drones. From there we made his way to the abandoned but still intact higher school building directly behind the barracks.

Breathing heavily he stumbled against a wall behind a corner and just gave himself one second of just catching his breath, leaning his head back against the wall. He had successfully managed to dodge the five man group of mercenaries that had managed to cut him off from the others. He knew he wasn't okay, his heart was beating too fast in his chest, his throat felt too tight and his head was too loud.

He had entirely refused to take a rifle, despite how easily Romanov had been ready to give him one, had only reluctantly taken the two guns offered to him, packed only two knives. He wasn't this killing machine anymore, he wasn't the Soldier anymore, he hadn't come out here to kill, to destroy. He wanted to protect, he wanted to make sure no innocent soul would get hurt, and if that meant luring mercenaries away from barricaded civilians then getting cut off from any kind of support had been worth it.

He wouldn't hurt another human being. Never again. His hands wouldn't have blood on them anymore, not more than they had already dripping from them. 

So he had concentrated on taking out the drones, the other robots Aim had created to support their attacks. Tech didn't live, tech didn't have families left behind, tech didn't have dreams and hopes.

But plans were plans and reality was something else, and now he was alone and an EMP had damaged the communication device in his ear. His hands had been shaking for minutes already, at least one shot had already went wide and only hit a drone by sheer luck alone. The mercenaries couldn't be too far away, he had maybe only put some distance and floors between him and them, and contrary to him they had no trouble shooting at people.

The hole in his side proved that fact.

He hissed when set the gun down for now and braced himself against the overturned desk for a moment. Just a moment. Just a small moment. Just a second to catch his breath. 

He cursed his nowadays overly hyped up pain sensitivity, the one disadvantage the broken programming had left him with. Free of trigger words, but even paper cuts felt like broken bones. Sometimes he really missed the days where he could have pushed on with actual broken legs without batting an eye over it, just because he didn't feel it.

Just a moment turned into ten minutes before he got aware of it. Ten minutes of him fighting down the nausea with one hand pressed over the thankfully not too heavily bleeding wound in his side. T'Challa was going to kill him, yell at him and then kill him, Bucky only hoped he would throw in a goodbye kiss as well.

His ears strained to hear sounds and followed every footstep several floors below him where the mercenaries were searching for signs of him. When his vision no longer turned into black spots upon moving, Bucky grabbed the gun again and went on. Step for step. Up and up, that was the idea now, get to the still usable part of the roof and then make contact with an Avenger.

He could do this, he could push on. He had wanted to help, he had volunteered, people relied on him. He had people to protect, people to save. They needed to stop these bastards.

\--

Three floors further up, two stories below the roof, a set of drones crashed into the stairway and were on him within seconds. Bucky took one of them out with two bullets into the control panel, but left himself too open as his body reacted too slow.

He screamed as the blast hit him in his thigh and went down, metal arm coming up just in time to keep his head from crashing against the steps.   
"Fuck, fuck. Fuck!" He screamed and scrambled to get the gun back into his hand, not even bothering with aiming at this point and just shot blindly at where he knew the drone had to be. 

One bullet missed. One hit the left wing.

Searing pain in his right shoulder and everything went white for a moment as he let out another blood curdling scream. 

"BUCKY!" His ear exploded with T'Challa's voice and Bucky bit back another scream as he rolled onto his stomach on the stairs, "Bucky, answer me! Bucky!" The yelling continued and he wanted so badly to answer, to say just something, to give away his position, but the EMP had taken out parts of the comm unit, had made all communication one-sided for him.

"Barnes? Do copy me? Do you need back-up?" Rhodes came next and then even more voices cursed when he didn't answer, "Does anyone have a visual on Barnes?"

They wouldn't. No one had seen how he had slipped away to get the attention of the mercenaries upon himself and no one else, that had been the damn plan. 

The drone fired again, even though it was already in half a tail spin from where Bucky had hit the flight controls in its wing. It hit him low on his back and he screamed, howled and cried out, wrenching himself around with another scream to take all remaining focus left in his pain frozen head to aim this time.

The drone went down with a metallic thud against concrete stairs and then remained dead, Bucky felt the ice crawling through his limbs and then how everything went limp, vision slowly turning gray as he blacked out, his skull crashing against the edge of the stairs.

"BUCK! ANSWER ME!"

\--


	2. Part 2

"Bucky, answer me!" T'Challa screamed into the comm for a third time and felt his entire body break out into a nervous sweat, horror images racing through his head, one worse than the other. Shots. There had clearly been shots fired. And Bucky had screamed. He had screamed in pure terror and pain. Bucky was hurt.

Bucky was hurt.

His mind became a tunnel, and there was only one thought at the end, Bucky had gotten hurt and he had no idea where he was, or how to get to him. How to save him. How to help him. Bucky was hurt. 

He slammed another Hydra agent to the ground and then vaulted himself up the abandoned school bus.

"Does anyone have a visual on Barnes?" Stark snapped and once again, everyone answered in the negative, sounding more frantic now. T'Challa looked around, tried to find brunet hair anymore, prayed for a silver arm reflecting sunlight.  
"Come on, Buck." He mumbled quietly to himself, his heart speeding up as he made a jump for the ledge of the cafeteria building rooftop.

"I believe something may have damaged Sergeant Barnes's comm, and he is therefor unable to communicate with us." Vision called out in that bloody fucking calm voice of his, lacking any kind of emotion and T'Challa wanted to scream. Wanted to yell that just because Bucky wasn't part of their team, didn't mean that he could show his fucking pokerface. 

His body shuddered with anger for a moment before the fear took over again, he had known something would go wrong, he had felt it coming and he should have been more persistent in holding Bucky back. It was his choice though, his head was still able to remind him as he kept on looking and looking, Bucky chose this for himself.

"Get on with the missions, I'll find Barnes." Stark's voice came through his ear in the next moment and T'Challa's kneejerk reaction was no, no he wouldn't let him, no way would Stark get to Bucky while he was down, he wouldn't...but Stark had called for Bucky's help, he had approached him. And T'Challa had to trust him now.

\--

Bucky snapped back to consciousness with a jolt, his entire body burned with pain and internal fire, but all he could focus on were the steps and voices coming closer and closer. They had found him. He struggled to his feet, nearly threw up when his stomach turned itself into a row of knots and his vision went white with pain.

He pulled the second gun from his hip and forced his feet up step for step, bit back scream after scream, only one goal in his head now. He needed to get up on the roof, he needed to get out of this staircase, needed air, needed light, needed cover, needed help.

When he finally reached the door on top of the stairs, he was already shaking so much from pain that he needed three trys to get the handle pushed down and the door open. The bright sunlight from outside brought him down on one knee for a moment before a shot got embedded in the door he was still holding onto and he collected his last amount of energy to get back to his feet and stumble over to a vent outlet, taking over behind it.

Or at least that had been the plan.

He never made it.

The pain in his chest suddenly spiked to a new high and he crashed to the ground, screaming for his life against the cold concrete roof.

The last thing he saw before passing out again was Iron Man shooting down from the sky. Down to him.

\--

"Fuck! I got him!"

That didn't sound good at all.

And T'Challa was running.

"Where is he?" He demanded to know, "And if you dare to tell me to stay with the mission, I will shoot you from the sky, Stark. I'm not an Avenger, tell me where Bucky is!"  
"Highest school building, rooftop...T'Challa, hurry." Stark replied to him after a split second of hesitance and T'Challa made a sharp right and ran faster.

\--

When T'Challa crashed through the doors onto the rooftop, Iron Man was standing over Bucky's fallen body, sending repulsor blasts towards the drones attacking from the sky and the mercenaries ducked behind the air vent outlets. He was defending Bucky. Bucky who wasn't moving. Bucky who was clearly knocked out.

Who maybe wasn't breathing anymore, who maybe wasn't...

T'Challa saw red, snarled and threw himself at the closest set of masked mercenaries and nothing could stop him as he send his claws into their necks. Stark could scream for him to stop as much as he want, he couldn't hold back anymore. They had hurt Bucky. They had shot Bucky. They had hurt his Bucky.

"Fuck, is that FOX News?" Rhodes's words connected somewhere with his head as he threw punched and kicked bodies into walls. Above his head the helicopter with its cameras was hovering like vultures.

And then suddenly no one was attacking anymore up on their roof and T'Challa whirled around, standing in the middle of the men he had just taken down like child's play. But all he saw was Bucky. Bucky and all that blood.

Blood. So much blood. Blood.

There was blood everywhere.

And Bucky wasn't moving. He wasn't moving.

T'Challa didn't even know how he crossed the distance between Bucky's body and the place he had stopped fighting in, just suddenly he was there, falling right to his knees. Heart racing in his chest, not daring to breathe, hands shaking as he frantically tried to find a pulse on Bucky's neck. Panic, panic, panic, and then... unsteady, but there. Bucky was alive, he was alive.

Half a sob broke from his chest when he gasped for air, falling forward almost when his hands captured Bucky's face on either side. He didn't care for Stark watching, he didn't care for the helicopter above their heads.  
"Bucky?" He choked out, his eyes roaming over his body, tried to see how bad it was, tried to see just why there was so much blood, so much blood, "Bucky, talk to me. Please. Please talk to me." He begged, but got no answer, Bucky remained ashen gray on the ground below him. 

T'Challa swallowed, tears burning in his eyes, he had known that something would go wrong, he had known right from the first second that something would go wrong, that they wouldn't get a quick in and out. Everything had to play against them, always. 

Bucky's pulse beat on and his chest rose and fell in shaky rattling breaths, blood soaking the stones.

"T'Challa!" Stark called out, loud and sounding like it hadn't been the first time calling his name, T'Challa looked up with suddenly so heavy limbs. He couldn't even think anymore, couldn't see anything but all this blood, "We need to help him." Stark said softly and crouched down in the suit on Bucky's other side.

Yes. Right. Help. They had to bring Bucky back on base immediately.

Bucky was gonna be okay. Bucky was going to be completely alright and fine.

He would not lose Bucky today. 

"Oh for fucking hell, someone take care of that fucking helicopter!" Stark then growled while T'Challa still clutched Bucky's face between his hands, silently begging him to open his eyes, to wake up, to just say something.  
"I'm on it." Wanda announced and not a few seconds later, they could watch how the helicopter and with it the cameras of FOX news drifted off.

"I'll get the recordings off the net later." Romanov announced them and everyone sounded tense, everyong was waiting for a word on Bucky but T'Challa couldn't speak, he couldn't think, he couldn't breathe.  
"Thanks, Nat. I'm taking Barnes back to the base. Rhodey, do me a favor and take T'Challa." Stark spoke into the comm line and T'Challa felt himself looking him, Stark had pulled up the mask of the suit and was watching him with that look in his eyes that answered all possible questions over whether or not he knew now, "Nat, you take over. Get these bastards taken down and clean up this mess."

The team sent their agreements back and then Stark carefully pushed his arms under Bucky's knees and shoulders to pick him up, T'Challa only reluctantly let go. Everything in him screamed to not let Stark take him, to not let the man who wanted to kill Bucky all this time ago take him away from him.

But Bucky needed help. Quick. And Stark could be back at the base in minutes.

"If he dies on your watch, I will come for you. I will find you wherever you may hide and I will make you pay." T'Challa heard himself speak without even really realizing where the words were coming from as he kept on kneeling on the ground when Stark got back to his feet.  
"I won't let him die." Stark answered, calm, repulsors firing up, "Not on my watch, or on anyone else's." And then he shot off.

And T'Challa was left looking at his hands, red with Bucky's blood, at the ground, red with Bucky's blood. At the bodies around him. Red with blood.

\--

He was desperately trying not to lose it, frantically trying to hold onto his sanity and composure and not just go a wild rampage and kill more of those bastards. Rip them apart. Hurt them like they had hurt Bucky. Hurt the man he loved, hurt the man he...

"T'Challa, breathe." The quiet voice came through the phone and T'Challa gasped for a new breath, "Alright, now please tell me again what the doctors said." Sam pleaded with him and T'Challa set the phone down on the side of the bed, right next to Bucky's hip, the one not bandaged up. He dragged a hand down his face and sat down in the chair again, reached for the metal hand and wrapped his fingers around them, squeezed.

Bucky remained unresponsive.

So still and quiet.

Still unconscious, cables everywhere, breathing tube, IV line, heart monitor, and more bandages than skin showing now.

"Six bullets. Two lodged in his right hip, one in his shoulder, one in his stomach, one just barely bypassed his lungs and one in his lower back." He began the report again that the doctors at the Avengers facility had given him an hour ago, "Severe concussion but he didn't crack his skull, four broken rips, a dislocated elbow. Bruised sternum and liver, torn meniscus and cruciate ligament in his right knee. Broken foot. Not to mention the at least two dozen bruises and lacerations. They stabilized him for now, he has help breathing and they are..." He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, Sam waited, quietly.

"I called Shuri, Raji is on his way on one of our jets, he should be here soon. I'm not letting anyone else put him into surgery before Raji is here, they don't know how the serum works, they will cause him more pain." He breathed out and let his thumb stroke over cold metal.  
"Is he in pain now?" Sam wanted to know, still so utterly quiet and calm, but T'Challa could hear how worried and shocked he was nevertheless, and his calm would surely disappear the second Steve got home.

He looked over to the monitors again, let his eyes watch over them for a moment and then closed his eyes again for a moment, another sigh of relief falling from his lips, just like the last five times he had checked, "No." He answered honestly, "No, he isn't. Maybe some discomfort, but it's not pain, the morphine is still working." Sam sighed as well.  
"Steve is going to freak out." He admitted after a moment and T'Challa snorted, leaning forward until he could rest his head against the pillow on which Bucky's head was resting as well, unmoving, wrapped in white gauze to protect the deep laceration at the back of his head.

He pulled up his free hand and carefully traced the lines of Bucky's jaw, his cheekbone, his nose, his face seemed to be the only part of his body that hadn't been injured. If it wasn't for the breathing tube, it almost looked like he might just be sleeping, "I'm freaking out." He confessed after a moment, "I'm really freaking out." Bucky's chest continued to steadily rise and fall, if only he would convince himself that Bucky was doing it all on his own.

"You need someone there with you? Because if the girls can't come, Steve and I will set us into our car right away. We need a couple of hours, but we can come." Sam babbled a little and T'Challa closed his eyes again.  
"No, it's okay. Please keep Steve from coming here, we both know that Bucky wouldn't want it. You two are staying out of this for a reason and he would not want you to come back into this mess just because he got hurt. He'll fine, he'll get the surgery and then he will heal." He said and was trying to convince himself more than anyone else.

"He will, T'Challa, he will." Sam definitely sounded more sure than him, "I know it's not entirely the same, but I know how you are feeling. Sitting there next to Steve's bed after DC? It sucked, but he got better. They helped him, and Raji will help Bucky as well. It's gonna be okay. Listen, Steve just pulled into the driveway, I'm gonna get these news to him now and then make sure he doesn't go all Rambo on the world. Call if anything changes?"

"Right away." T'Challa promised and then watched how the call ended on his phone, he swiped his fingers over the display and turned the music back up that had been playing before Sam had called him back after his message. It filled the room with soft tunes again, and on the heart monitor Bucky's pulse went down two beats again.

T'Challa though went back to his feet, dragged both hands through his hair again and returned to where he had previously been staring out of the window, down at the facility grounds that lay quiet and empty for the most part. So much green and still looking so strange and not calming at all. This wasn't the old beauty of Bucharest and Bucky grouching over essays at the kitchen table. This wasn't the hectic but still calming beauty of London and Bucky cursing over hot tea water on the couch. This wasn't the breathtaking beauty and safety of Wakanda and Bucky splayed out over his bed.

This was the gray sky, forest hidden Avengers facility in upstate New York and Bucky was lying in a bed in the medical floor, not fighting for his life but it wasn't far off.

A knock on the door drew him back out of his head again, and he turned around to look at Tony standing in the open doorway.  
"Your doctor has made contact with our ground control some minutes ago, he should be here within the next twenty minutes." He started and T'Challa nodded, gesturing for Tony to come inside, "How is he doing?" He asked next and came to stand at the foot of Bucky's bed, T'Challa swallowed down the initial reaction of snapping something not to polite.

It wasn't Stark's fault that Bucky was hurt, it wasn't Bucky's fault or his fault either. It had just been bad luck and misfortune and too much happening at once. 

"He's going to pull through." He replied and Tony glanced over to him before going back to watching Bucky. T'Challa didn't kid himself, the cat was out of the bag now, there was no way that someone as attentive as Stark had not seen just what was going on between Bucky and him, he had been right there on that rooftop. And what one Avenger knew, the rest usually knew within the hour, too.

"If I had known that he wouldn't shoot people or actually fight to really incapacitate, I wouldn't have let him go out." Tony pointed out and T'Challa snorted, couldn't really help it as he moved back to the chair and sat back down, immediately reaching for Bucky's hand again, not sense in pretending anymore.  
"As if he had listened to you, had you said no. He's not an Avenger, Stark, he doesn't have to follow your commands." T'Challa answered him and looked at Bucky's closed eyes, "He doesn't even listen to me, he's stubborn sometimes. He wanted to go out because he wanted to protect people, and he did, he lured these bastards away from the kids, and if that EMP hadn't damaged his comm, he would have called for help, pointed one of you in his direction. He knows when to ask for help."

"You know him well."

"You know Rhodes very good as well, Tony. It's a side effect of having a relationship that's based on love and trust." And there it was, official affirmation out of his mouth and all, and just as expected Tony didn't even really look surprised.

\--

Raji arrived and didn't waste any time on greeting Avengers, instead he went right to business, didn't even stop long enough to more than briefly squeeze T'Challa's shoulder before he pushed him out of Bucky's room and got himself briefed on his status. And then they rolled Bucky into surgery and T'Challa was left waiting in a dull and clinically clean cut waiting area, feeling like he could just crawl out of his skin any moment. 

After half an hour of sitting frozen in that fucking uncomfortable chair he looked up when a cup off coffee was held out to him in front of his face, and he cursed himself when he hadn't even sensed Wanda approach. But he was also happy that it was Wanda and not any of the others, at least with her there was a certain sense of familiarity. 

He took the coffee and warmed his hands that felt so cold since he had to let Bucky go, Wanda sank into a chair next to him.   
"Does Steve know?" She asked after a few minutes of silence and T'Challa thought of the half dozen messages in all caps send to his phone.  
"Yeah, he knows." He answered and then managed to read the expression on her face, "He's not coming. Bucky means a lot to him, but Steve and Sam both know that making one step into this mess again means they won't be able to leave. Because people won't let them. But everything I know about Bucky's state, they will know as well."

"Shuri called me about an hour ago, told me you might need someone to keep you company." Wanda admitted quietly with a little smile after another pause between them and T'Challa groaned, perfectly ripped from the rising tide of panic in his chest, "She might have mentioned your inability to cope with loved ones in a hospital, but she might have also stated that Bucky is an especially sore spot."

He was.

Oh god he was.

His head assaulted him with the images of Bucky screaming on the floor of the gym all these far months ago, trashing in pain and fear, and no one being able to find a way to help him until Raji dosed the morphine and the three fucking other drugs high enough to knock him out.

And then the night that followed. Bucky continously gasping himself awake without being really there. Bucky sleeping fitful and restless. Calling out helplessly, frightened and scared, and T'Challa had almost wanted to make a list of all those names falling from trembling lips to make sure all of them were dead by now.

Bucky was a sore spot, a very sore spot because Hydra and the Russians and every other possible bastard who might have had his hands on him had resulted in this pain hypersensitivity, in this already battered body and mind being unable to cope with pain. Unable to differentiate between the real pain of an injury and the one a traumatized mind could conjure up in his head alone.

And T'Challa sitting there at his bedside, helpless but for a shaking voice trying to soothe and give comfort. Hands offered to that trembling palm that held on so weak but desperate.

It might have been years ago, but it surely didn't dull the memory at all.

Bucky had never wanted to fight again for a very very good reason.

But of course he also had a heart a mile wide, for animals, for children, for the place he had been born and grown up in. He might be Romanian now, might feel at home in Bucharest, but just like Steve, Brooklyn would always be close to his heart. Children in Brooklyn, it was like fate had wanted him to get hurt, of course he wouldn't think, would just jump.

He told Wanda as much, not about the issues with Bucky's head, that was private, no one here had to know that, this one big weakness they may as well never be able to cure, but about his kindness, about his stubborn head. Wanda's chuckle when he was done surprised him.  
"Did you ever hear Shuri talk about you? Because she sounds exactly like that. I can see why Bucky and you are so happy together." She smiled, spoke quietly, and T'Challa was suddenly reminded of that moment years ago when they had been alone, too. 

That moment Wanda had told him right next to Bucky's cryo chamber that T'Challa's voice made Bucky feel safe, that it was soothing, that he liked it. That moment where it had slammed into his heart like a freight train.

"He's gonna be okay. And he is safe here for as long as he needs to be here." Wanda continued, voice stronger now, looking up to meet his gaze, unwavering, determined, "I will make sure of it." A promise just as much as it was a threat to those who might mean Bucky harm, and he nodded, thanked her with his eyes alone, feeling tongue tied.

Wanda Maximoff was a sweet young woman, polite, well mannered, she had seen much and endured even more, but had never lost her kindness and her goodness. The Scarlet Witch was the most powerful Avenger, even though Wanda held her back inside of herself most of the time, but T'Challa had no doubt that she could decimate any threat the world had to offer in seconds if only she wanted to. 

It made him breathe easier just a little bit.

\--

Raji reappeared through those blue tinted doors five hours later, five endless hours of waiting and not knowing. Two more calls to his sister and cousins back in Wakanda, one more call to Steve and Sam, everyone worried, everyone scared. 

The second though that Raji stepped through those doors T'Challa knew he was the most frightened one of all of them and he jumped to his feet and felt his entire body tense with pure terror for that one split second it took his friend to curl his exhausted lips into a smile. A tired one, but still a smile. T'Challa was aware that the hands he brought up to drag through his hair were shaking until Raji set both of his hands on his shoulders.

He smelled like antiseptic, T'Challa scrunched up his nose on autopilot alone, he had hated that smell since the first day Raji had come back into their flat in London from his first stint at the hospital as a resident. But it was also familiar, was grounding, as much as he detested it.

"Narcotics worked, no pain, no signs of waking up throughout the whole surgery." Raji took the first and biggest worry off his chest, behind him he felt Wanda stand up as well, hands wringing around each other in her lap, she had staid with him, quiet companion. "Everything went well, so breathe, I'm not going on before you're breathing." And T'Challa felt eight years old again, but he breathed, pushed two deep breaths through his lungs and felt the headache behind his temples dim a little.

As promised Raji went on, hands tight on his shoulders, sometimes his powers were a curse for his best friend who really liked to ignore headaches sometimes and didn't want people throwing painkillers at his face, or mix him those fucking disgusting herbal teas, or light scented candles. Raji didn't always see the line between doctor and insufferable mother hen when it came to his friends.

"The surgery went flawless, and he will heal perfectly again. I got the bullets out, I set his knee and his shoulder, worst thing in the next two weeks or so will probably be him bitching about being unable to do his yoga." Out of the corner of his eye T'Challa saw Wanda raise an eyebrow, "He'll be fine, Chall. We just need to give the serum some time now to kickstart his healing." And needing a moment to get himself in check again, T'Challa pulled his phone out of his pants and pushed it against Raji's chest until he grabbed it himself.

"Can you call Sam and Steve?" T'Challa switched into Wakandian, "And the girls?" Raji raised an eyebrow, non verbally asking him if he was okay and T'Challa shook his head, "I just really need fifteen minutes alone right now and then I need to see him." Raji nodded and then squeezed his shoulder again before sliding his finger over the phone display.

"Can I...tell the team?" Wanda asked quietly from the sides and T'Challa had almost forgotten her, too tired suddenly, but he nodded at her and Wanda walked off.

\--

 

Raji was the only one in Bucky's room when T'Challa returned, freshly showered and more in control over himself again as he sunk into the chair standing once more at Bucky's bedside.   
"You're not leaving, are you?" T'Challa asked into the silence of the room that was only interrupted by the steady beeping of the heart monitor. Raji looked over to him where he had been leaning against the window with a tablet in his hands, StarkTech, eyeing it like Stark did with Apple software. 

"Not until he is awake, no. Not getting rid of me until then." Because you need me here, were the words he didn't say but meant, and T'Challa sighed, let his body slump.  
"You're going to rant about outdated tech at least half of that time, huh?" He wondered, eyes looking at Bucky's face though, noting with immense relief that he looked more relaxed now, softer, really sleeping and not just knocked out with drugs and headtrauma, he reached for the metal hand again, applied pressure, set his flesh hand more comfortably upon his stomach so the IV line wouldn't twinge him.

"Oh, don't get me started! Have you seen this crap?" Raji went off like a firecracker in Wakandian and T'Challa allowed himself a little grin as he let himself get swept up in his friend complaining about vintage technology.

"The secret is out now." Raji said about two hours later, sitting on a chair on Bucky's other side, typing away on his phone now, tablet having been discarded about five minutes into his now ended ranting. "Romanov and Maximoff might run inteference and maybe they'll get the video off of the internet again, but it won't stop people from knowing. You know how these things work. And those pics? No questions in them, Chall, this relationship is out now."

"You want me to freak out about that, too?" T'Challa looked over to Raji where he had leaned his head against Bucky's pillow again, one hand still holding onto metal fingers, the other tracing patterns over his face, "Because I'm really tired, and you can feel my headache. I have no energy left to care about that now, too." He grumbled and Raji huffed, "Wakanda knows and didn't take offense. They have accepted Bucky at my side."

"Because Bucky cares about them and respecta our country and its traditions. He knew and accepted right from the start that there never would be a place for him within our borders. The people know how happy he makes you, and I dare say by now they actually like him." Raji smiled at him and T'Challa smiled back. He knew there was a difference between liking and accepting, knew that his home only liked Bucky because he respected the limits of his welcome and loved another country as his home.

And because Shuri was sitting on the throne. 

A decision T'Challa had not regretted in the few months since giving the throne over to his sister. They had both known that times had changed, that opening their isolation to outside contact, limited as they were still though, meant inviting danger in as well. The world had changed, and for the first time they had seen the need to change with it.

Wakanda no longer needed the Black Panther as a leader and protector. Now, it needed a leader and a protector, and one person couldn't fill that role alone anymore. T'Challa couldn't, not without giving up a big part of who he was. Shuri was a great Queen, a better leader for Wakanda than T'Challa could have ever seen himself become. The Black Panther, that was him, that was his blood and his heart and soul, and he protected Wakanda, on all sides, on all fronts, fought for their place among the leading parties in the world.

And his people had thanked him by respecting Bucky at his side.

"I don't care what the rest of the world thinks, and Bucky won't either. The people we care about know and respect our relationship. It's more than enough." T'Challa pointed out and Raji nodded at him, "I'm more interested in how you are planning to get our people behind your back when you're finally admitting that Shuri and you are not really just friends."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

\--

Outside the night progressed and T'Challa zoned in and out of sleep, begrudgingly accepting the special headache painkillers Raji had waved in front of his face for minutes and then nodding right off for half an hour straight. He only woke up again when Raji not so very gently shook him away so that the nurse he had called for could assist him in exchanging Bucky's breathing tube for a nasal canula.

T'Challa nearly felt his face split in half with his relieved smile, Rafi squeezed his shoulder when the nurse had left again.

"Serum has apparently finally become my friend." Raji sighed and dropped back into his own chair, pulling up his phone and quickly typed something before he continued, no doubt surely texting Shuri, "He is healing, you can almost see how the color is returning to his skin." He pointed out and T'Challa rolled his shoulders and neck before looking down at Bucky, smiling brighter still when he saw how his face had almost returned to that healthy barely there tan. "And before you ask, no, there is no pain, he is still floating. I would even dare say, he feels better than you, drink something."

"You're a nuisance."

The waiting went on but with every hour that passed Bucky looked more alive and T'Challa felt stone after stone falling from his shoulders and chest. 

And as the sun slowly started to rise for the next day, Bucky's eyes began to move behind still closed eyelids and Raji woke T'Challa from another nap.  
"I'll be right outside." He whispered and T'Challa's eyes snapped over to where Bucky's lips had opened to move with mute words, the best sign they had that he would wake soon.

It still took another twenty minutes.

Twenty long minutes where T'Challa didn't dare look away for even one second, his whole attention set to Bucky and Bucky alone. Raji wouldn't let anyone come inside the room now anyway.

And then blue eyes flickered open and metal fingers curled around his squeezing hand.

"Fuck Hydra." Bucky croaked out, eyes focusing on him slowly, "Fuck AIM. I'm never leaving Romania again." He added and T'Challa kissed him. Careful, slow, but Bucky kissed him back after a slow delay.  
"Never do that to me again! Never, do you hear me?" It broke out of T'Challa in an equally strained voice, "I was so terrified."

"I'm here." Bucky told him and then coughed, T'Challa quickly reached for a glass of water and helped Bucky take a few careful sips, "What's hurt?" He wanted to know when he could talk again.  
"Too much that I want to list it right now. Are you in pain? I can call Raji in and give you another dose of morphine if you need it? Dizzy? Do you remember what happened? Why we're here, why..."

"Chall, please stop talking." Bucky pleaded quietly and T'Challa snapped his mouth shut, "I'm gonna be okay, alright? I'm gonna be okay. And I will never fight alone again, I promise you."  
"Good, because I have zero intentions to ever let you out of my sight again when you're outside of Romania. Not even for a second." T'Challa made clear and then kissed him again, "We can talk later. Get some more rest now, okay? I'll be right here, you're safe."

"I love you." Bucky smiled at him and T'Challa felt the last worry inside of him fade away to background noise, he would be okay, Bucky would be okay. Just needed time, T'Challa would take him back to London once he was stable for transport, where both of them felt safe and comfortable, and Bucky would be able to heal in quiet there.

"I love you, too, my little kitten." T'Challa whispered to him and then stroked through the few strands of hair peaking out from under the bandage on Bucky's head until Bucky fell asleep again. He watched him for another few minutes, let his heart calm down the remaining few beats before he brought his head down onto the pillow as well again and pushed closer until his nose touched Bucky's cheek, and then he let himself drift off as well.

They were okay.

**Author's Note:**

> second part will come up on either sunday evening or monday evening


End file.
